Reports

Six years ago, Mexico began the process of reforming its oil and gas sector, opening it up to private investment and ending the monopoly of its state-owned oil company. The election of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has changed all that. Mexico is heading back toward resource nationalism, but stands ...

Swept into office by an overwhelming electoral victory last month, Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will take office with a degree of power not seen in decades. He has prioritized several issue areas, including poverty, corruption and negotiations over NAFTA, but his specific policy agenda remains unclear. The new ...

Mexicans seem set to vote for change in their country’s July presidential election, with Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador far ahead in the polls. The ruling party’s candidate is a distant third, and that reflects widespread disappointment in the current administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto. The government has notched up ...

Less than a year ahead of a presidential election, Mexicans have lost faith in the political establishment. Enter Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who promises to end corruption and crony capitalism. He is leading the polls, but his unpredictability and criticism of free markets has business leaders spooked. The main parties ...

Mexico’s relationship with the United States was driving change in the country long before it became the focus of President Donald Trump. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) dramatically altered its economy, allowing it to become a key provider of manufacturing and agricultural goods to the U.S. But Mexico ...

Geography will have a big impact on Latin America in the coming year: the closer a country is to the United States, the worse off it will be. What President Donald Trump does will shape developments in the region, as will the prices of key commodities. If Mr. Trump decides ...

The advent of Donald Trump has not come at a good time for Mexico. After a fast start, the reform-minded government of President Enrique Pena Nieto has bogged down in corruption scandals and a stagnant economy. But tensions with the U.S. may also create opportunities for Mr. Nieto, if he ...

Faced with output declines and the shale revolution, Mexico had little choice but to reopen its oil and gas industry to foreign investors. The early results have been promising, but President Enrique Pena Nieto’s energy reforms are not out of the woods yet.

In nearly four years, President Enrique Pena Nieto has been unable to tackle Mexico’s difficulties with organized and violent crime. His shift of focus to economic matters only papers over the problem, rather than addressing its root cause: institutional weakness. The country’s perpetual security crisis looks set to continue.

Today’s relatively low price of oil seems to have reconciled the otherwise conflicting interests of the world’s largest producers and consumers. Organizations representing these two groups have warned of negative repercussions, including a price spike that could follow from lower investment. However, the relationship between oil prices, investment and future ...

Despite an encouraging start to his term just over two years ago, Enrique Pena Nieto is the only Mexican president in the past 25 years to poll at less than 50 per cent approval with the public. His problems include lower oil prices, inadequate tax revenues, organised crime and corruption. ...

Plunging oil prices will affect Latin America’s major producers – including Mexico, Colombia, and OPEC members Ecuador and Venezuela – in different ways. There is no sign of a permanent drop in demand; prices will probably remain low for a year or two, and the first three of those countries ...

Mexico’s Enrique Pena Nieto began his presidential term with a bang nearly two years ago, announcing radical reforms of the three areas which most analysts regarded as the bottlenecks preventing growth. But powerful unions, cronyism, inefficiency and a sluggish economy are making those reforms difficult to progress and it now ...

Mexico made its mark by being the first country to nationalise its oil industry. Seventy five years later it has made its mark by becoming one of the last to open its doors to foreign companies. Whether the reforms will succeed in attracting the desirable level of investment will depend ...

Since Enrique Pena Nieto became President of Mexico in December 2012, commentators around the world have concentrated on its economic potential and programme of reforms, rather than its crime rate. But this favourable perspective of the nation is in danger of being short-lived as it moves into recession and protests ...

Trade, investment and education made the headlines when US President Barack Obama and new Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto held talks on May 2, 2013. But gun control, drugs and immigration are still key issues for both men and there is a lack of trust between their intelligence communities, which ...

Mexico and the US are enhancing their shared political agenda in a move which takes the focus off the contentious issues of drugs, security and immigration and highlights the countries’ partnership in trade and investment . The joint vision is to place greater emphasis on collaboration in education and research ...

Mexico’s new president, Enrique Pena Nieto, has plans to revitalise both his country’s skills and industry base. He has started with an education reform designed to enhance teacher quality, break down the political strangle-hold of the country’s 1.5 million-member teaching union and return control to the federal government. This is ...

The mainstay of President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto was a promise to undertake structural reforms to improve the lives of Mexicans throughout the country. In the second of a two-part series on his election, we look at the prospects and obstacles for those reforms, in particular on energy, the labour market, ...

The election of Enrique Pena Nieto as president of Mexico will reinstate the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) at the head of the country’s politics - 12 years after it lost power in 2000. Its reputation then was one of autocracy and corruption, but the newly-elected president has given it a ...

Enrique Pena Nieto is the firm favourite to win the first round of Mexico’s presidential election but 15 to 20 per cent of the country’s 75 million voters have still to decide who to support. Victory for Mr Pena Nieto will mean a return to power for the PRI which ...

There is wide consensus within emerging economies that their futures are closely tied to their success in expanding and enhancing their labour force through greater access to higher and further education. And as they try to improve efficiency, diversity and quality, governments are looking to increase the share of the ...

Support for Josefina Vazquez Mota is growing in the race for the next President of Mexico. She has shaken up the election race as the first female candidate selected by a main political party. Her popularity is growing with a campaign focussing on women’s liberation as one of the major ...

Otto Perez Molina has come to power in Guatemala promising to clamp down on violence, particularly in relation to drug trafficking and organised crime, to improve citizen security. It is one of Central America's most violent countries with a murder rate twice that of Mexico. But there are concerns that ...